Sometimes, we end up saving a known or unknown person’s contact number more than once. This results in the duplication of contacts. So, it’s always a good idea to clean them up before we experience any sort of trouble in choosing the right one. The new merge duplicate contacts feature in iOS 16 is designed for this purpose.
The latest iteration of iOS is equipped with a built-in duplication detector and merger tool that when accessed, lets you merge duplicate contacts on iPhone, running iOS 16 or later. You don’t need to use any third-party contact management tool to fix this problem.
How to merge duplicate contacts on iPhone iOS 16
This guide walks you through the process to find and merge duplicate contacts to keep them organized.
On your iPhone Home Screen, tap the Contacts app to open it.
1. If you have any duplicate contacts in your Contacts list, they’ll automatically appear under your contact card. If it doesn’t, refresh the screen by pulling it down and releasing it to refresh.
2. When you’re ready, tap the View Duplicates link. You should see a list of all the duplicate contacts or cards in your account. Alongside, you’ll also find how many cards were found with the same name.
3. You can review each duplication individually by selecting a contact from the list. It will show all the copies matching the same name entry.
4. Simply, tap the Merge All button at the bottom of the screen to merge all the entries and remove them from the duplicate list.
If you would like to merge all contacts automatically, go back to Duplicates main list and tap the Merge All button at the bottom of the screen. Tap the Merge option again to confirm.
That’s all there is to it!